all the lovely bad ones
by milk ghost
Summary: When Fionna decides to investigate the 'haunted' house at the end of her street, she really has no idea what she's getting herself into.—marshall lee/fionna
1. across this new divide

**notes: **yes i know i have many other things i need to update and how dare i post something new, but. i wrote this up after midnight and i liked it so there. **  
**fionna and cake's last name in this is _mertins, _because that seems to be the name everyone uses, so. also this is _au_, in case you hadn't already guessed. this is also super short because of reasons, but the next chapter will be longer.

**summary: **He's still dead, but he's getting warmer. (In which Fionna accidentally becomes involved with the Vampire King, and ends up falling for him. But life isn't that easy, is it?) **  
pairing: **marshall lee ო fionna**  
disclaimer: **own nothing

—

.

.

.

_ turning your head to see a new day calling_

.

.

.

**i.**

When Fionna Mertins was a little girl, the boys on her street would try and scare her. As they are wont to do, they would tell her stories—of ghosts, goblins, ghouls, haunted houses, vampires, the works—and then they would watch as sweet, innocent Fionna's baby blue eyes would widen to the size of saucers as she tried to process what she'd been told.

Five-year-old girls are gullible and naïve—completely oblivious to the horrors of the world around them—and for Fionna, it was the same way. She'd never seen any scary movies or heard any stories about the supernatural before, and so the legends grabbed onto her and rooted themselves inside her in an almost unnatural way.

Sometimes she would run home, away from the laughing and snickering boys, and hide under her bed for hours.

But the fact was, Fionna was never as scared as she should have been.

Maybe it was her humanity—which allowed her to care and feel, even things like fear—or maybe it was because of her intense curiosity, but she was always more interested in the legends than she was frightened of them. And because of that inquisitive nature within her, she started to fear the creatures in the boys' stories less.

Instead she lived for adventure—to solve mysteries and explore the world around her and its wonders.

Growing up in a small town and as the only girl on her street besides her older sister made Fionna into a tomboy of sorts. Because most of her playmates were boys, she quickly grew tough and was able to hold her own in a game of roughhousing or the occasional fight. And, because she grew smarter and stronger, the boys lost their advantage of scaring her with silly ghost stories.

Which was not something that made them very happy.

So, when Fionna was the tender age of ten—all sprite-like, bright-eyed, blonde fairy child—one of the boys dared her to go into the 'haunted' house at the end of their street. Its name came from the horrible state the home was in—a broken-down front porch, dilapidated siding, broken and grimy windows, the small animals that entered only to never be seen again, and the ever-present strange noises that came from the place. Because of its unkempt exterior and the weird things that seemed to happen around it, the kids on Grassland Street had dubbed it 'haunted.'

And the thing was, all the kids were too scared to go near it, let alone inside it.

It had all started out as teasing being taken too far, and no one really expected her to accept the dare. But Fionna Mertins was not chicken, and she would not let some boy get the best of her because of some stupid dare.

So, after school had ended one cloudy autumn day, ten-year-old Fionna found herself standing on the cracked sidewalk in front of the creaky old house. Flashlight in hand, an old Kodak camera tucked away inside her green backpack that was slung over her shoulder, she turned and gave one last glance to the five trembling boys behind her.

She'd been a little frightened too, but the idea of the adventure that was waiting for her inside left her feeling more giddy than nervous. So with a roll of her eyes and a mock two-finger salute, she'd carefully picked her way up the collapsing front porch and climbed in one of the broken windows.

The boys from her street waited outside, a little too eager and fidgeting. It wasn't until the blonde had actually gone in that they'd started to have doubts about the whole thing.

Because, although Fionna went in, she did not come out.

So they waited, and waited, and waited some more.

Until the heard the terrified scream coming from inside, and it sent them running for their homes and Fionna's older sister.

Now Cake Mertins had been having a relatively peaceful day prior to the sudden sound of horrified shrieks and shouts, the banging at her front door, and the two crying eleven-year-olds on her front porch. And after coxing the full story out of the two, and recruiting some parents to help her search, they broke down the front door of the unsafe house in search of Fionna.

Who they found half-drowned in the cistern.

Apparently, she'd been coming back downstairs after investigating the second story and on her way toward the front door to report the house was ghost-free, when some of the floorboards in the kitchen gave out. They'd been covering the old source of water for decades, and had finally given out completely with the girl's added weight.

So the day ended with Fionna being rushed to the nearest hospital in a daze and with a newly acquired and intense fear of large quantities of water, and most of the peculiar happenings around the house being brushed off for several things.

The odd noises were attributed to the home's old age—it'd been standing for at least two centuries, after all, and old houses were bound to creak and groan at some point. And all the seemingly unexplainable disappearances were explained by the weak floorboards.

There was still something incredibly _off_ about the old place, but no one except Cake Mertins seemed to take any notice of it. It was a pinprick of fear, a cold shiver down the back of her spine, the rise of goosebumps on her arms. It was something that made the seventeen-year-old extremely anxious and want to get out as fast as possible. So, after grabbing the old camera that her sister had dropped when she fell, the older girl hurried out and into the waiting ambulance holding her younger sibling.

In the end, the house was deemed absolutely unsafe and condemned, and the incident was forgotten after a year or so. Though the story and a picture of Fionna were featured on the news that Tuesday night.

That's the story of how the blonde broke her left ankle, fractured her right wrist, survived a seven foot fall, and ended up staying home from school for two months, but it's also the story of her first encounter with Marshall Lee Abadeer.

Otherwise known as the Vampire King.


	2. a story told in photographs

**notes: **so i'm actually really excited for this and i guess i let it get the best of me? idk, bu this chapter turned out really _long. _and gumball's first name in this is _barry _because i felt weird using bubba, so. (though it always cracks me up, seriously.) also the name of their town sucks because i was trying to keep with the 'aaa' theme, and i didn't get very far. anyway, thanks for the reviews! they make me feel so happy.

.

.

.

_tell me now how do i feel? _

.

.

.

**ii.**

Fionna Mertins had never been overly fond of chores—like cleaning her room, washing the dishes, doing the laundry—but she liked helping people. She helped her sister at the diner the older girl owned downtown, she helped the elderly neighbor man pick the apples off the trees in his orchard when they were ready to be harvested, she saved other students from being bullied or picked on, and sometimes she picked up odd jobs here and there just to see what she could do.

She always told herself that it was an adventure—because seriously, there was that one time when that squirrel had rampaged through Cinnamon Bun's home and heaven knows _that'd _had the whole town in an uproar.

That squirrel had been possessed, okay, and though she hadn't believed it until she'd been entrusted with the mission to trap the evil thing, she definitely knew the truth now.

The thought brought back unpleasant memories and made her shiver.

Anyway, because of her default helpful nature, this was how she found herself cleaning out the attic of her home. Cake had to work today—like almost every day except holidays and some specially reserved days for sisterly bonding and pancakes—but had been complaining about the top floor of their home and how it needed some 'serious work, babygirl.'

Cake's birth and her adoptive mother used to keep it clean, but the girls' parents had died in a car accident about a year after the family had moved to town, and the two girls had been on their own ever since.

So it'd only been natural that Fionna had offered to lend a hand and clean it for her. It was a Saturday, so that meant no school, and even though she'd been planning on hanging out with Barry today, he could always come over and help her so they could get it done faster.

And he had, once she'd called him, and the two had been straightening things up ever since.

Barry Gumball—she had to wonder about the names of the people in this town, sometimes—had been her best friend since the second grade, when the she and the Mertins family had just moved to the sleepy town of Acre's Appletree. They didn't live that far from each other, and even though Fionna was a tomboy and Barry was a bit girly, they'd gotten along well.

He'd also been her crush for the last two years, but.

Fionna sighed and lifted the heavy lid of another trunk. She wrinkled her nose at the dust that coated her fingertips, and brushed them against her skirt in an effort to rub it off. "I don't remember this place being so _dusty _the last time I was up here."

Barry raised a brow. "Yes well, I'm sure your mother kept it cleaner. I must say, Cake was right. It's gotten a little out of control."

The blonde cast a quick glance around the cluttered and dust-covered room, then rolled her eyes and turned back to the trunk in front of her. They'd been deciding what was to stay and what was headed to the dumpster all morning—and this was like her fifth trunk to sort through in three hours.

With another sigh, she peered over the edge. It was nearly packed to the brim—different colored fabrics folded just so to fit. Her brows shot to her hairline and she reached inside.

"Oh. Oh my glob. Barry you have to see this."

The strawberry blond teen turned to look at his friend, and was surprised to see her holding up an old ball gown. It was a rich blue color, with quartered sleeves lined in pretty white lace, more lace overlapped the gown down the front, and it had a low neckline.

He blinked.

Fionna took a good look at the dress and its long skirt, and then glanced down at what she was wearing. Her favorite turquoise hoodie that hugged her body and had a white hood with rabbit ears, a navy just-above-the-knee skirt, white thigh-high socks, and black high top sneakers.

"This looks so unconventional. How do you even move in it?"

Barry smiled. "By walking, I suppose."

Fionna rolled her eyes but cracked a smile. "I wonder what it's doing up here? I think there might even be a couple more in this trunk…"

"Your mother, she used to perform at the theatre, didn't she?" Barry turned back to the box of old mismatched things he was sorting through. "They're probably just old costumes from the plays she used to be in."

The blonde paused and thought back to her mother—her real birth mother—and blinked.

They didn't talk about her, much.

"Probably, she agreed. "You're probably right. That's kind of a recurring theme with you, y'know?"

Barry scoffed lightly. "I'm not always right. That's not statistically probable. The chances of that happening are—,"

"Anyway," Fionna cut in, "I think I'm gonna keep this one. Since it belonged to mom." a quick glance at the name written inside the trunk confirmed Barry's theory. "And some of this stuff is pretty cool, don't you think?"

When she received no response, Fionna turned to look at her best friend. She was about to repeat her question when she noticed the teen was holding something in his hands and looking over it. She made her way around the mess in the room and over to him. Peering over his shoulder, she raised a brow at the object in his hands. Then recognition hit her and she was reaching for it.

"Hey! My camera! I thought I'd lost this years ago," she turned the old Kodak over in her hands and blew some dust off of it. "Seriously, this used to be one of my most prized possessions."

It was a little dirtier than she remembered, but the slightly scuffed lens was still the same, and the initials 'F.M.' were still roughly scratched on the right side of the camera.

Her first engraving job. She'd been seven.

Barry smiled. "I know. I remember. You were pretty upset when you realized you'd lost it."

Her baby blue eyes became distant. "Yeah…I wonder how it got mixed in with this stuff in the first place?"

Suddenly, an idea struck her and she turned to her friend with a grin.

"Hey, when we finish cleaning this place, wanna see my younger self's awesome photography skills? I bet I've got some pretty great shots."

Barry smiled. "Sure."

.

.

.

Fionna stared intently down at the developing photos as Barry hung some of the others up to dry.

"I forgot you guys even had a dark room for this sort of thing."

The blonde caught her best friend's eye and shrugged. "It's just the two of us in this big old house," she gave him a cheeky smile. "Too many rooms. Besides, I used to take a ton of pictures with this thing before I lost it."

She patted the camera sitting next to her on the table.

"Well anyway," Barry cast a glance around the room, "I'm glad we're almost finished. I think half the pictures you were talking about snapping are the ones hanging up here…"

Fionna scoffed and socked him lightly in the arm. "Oh please. I don't complain when you bake for like, two-thirds of the day."

He sent her an amused smile. "You do, actually."

"_What I'm trying to say is, _I respect your worrisome feminine habits so you can just relax and let me have this one, okay."

Barry rolled his eyes but gave her a half-smile. "You still want to be a photographer?"

The blonde shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe. Especially since I got my wings back. Like, my metaphorical wings. 'Cause this is a camera, and even though I love it and it's very important to this whole process, cameras can't fly, so."

She handed him the last of the photos and watched as he hung them up to dry. "See anything good? Like, what exactly did my ten-year-old artistic self have an eye for?"

Barry squinted at a few of the fifty-something black-and-white pictures. "Well…you have like seven pictures of Simone Petrikov…which I find extremely disturbing. Why did you even take these?"

Fionna snorted. "Who knows? That crazy old bat hates me."

He nodded slightly. "They are pretty decent pictures though…nothing even remotely embarrassing. In fact, you even seem to have captured her in some of her best moments."

"Maybe that was before she got a stick up her—,"

"I don't remember this place, Fionna," Barry cut her off, eyes narrowing in an attempt to see better in the low red lighting of the room. "Where did you take this?"

Fionna blinked and slid over to him, raising a brow. "What? Where?"

"This one," he tapped a picture hanging just above her head, "I don't really recognize the house."

The blonde stood on her toes and squinted at the photo. "I think…I've seen it before…but I just can't remember where."

"Here's another. And this one too. Fionna, there's like twenty of them."

A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Help me get them down. Let's take 'em out of here so I can see them better."

Five minutes later, the two friends were seated on Fionna's living room floor, the old Kodak snapshots spread all around them. It was raining outside, and the sky was dark and dreary. Fionna turned on the lamp sitting on the small table by the couch, and then returned her attention to the pictures.

The blonde scrunched her nose and picked up one of the photos. Something about it had bells ringing in her head, and suddenly she knew just where the photos had originated from.

"I know where these were taken," she looked up at Barry, eyes wide. "I took these when I was dared to go into that old house at the end of the street." she tapped her chin absentmindedly. "Y'know, I actually think my camera might've disappeared after that…"

He gaped at her. "_That's _where these were taken?"

She ignored his repetition of her previous statement and instead focused her attention on a picture by her right foot. She leaned over and picked it up, brows creased. "Hey Barry, look at this."

The teen blinked and glanced at the photograph. It was, like all the others, in black and white. But instead of old furniture or broken-down rooms, there was another picture inside it—a painting, from the looks of it.

He leaned a little closer. "Is that…a kid?"

Fionna nodded, and some of her bangs fell into her left eye. "Yeah—a boy, I think." she smiled. "Cute, isn't he?"

"Yeah well, he's probably dead by now."

She rolled her eyes and sighed in an overdramatic, exaggerated way. "Thanks Gumball, y'really know how to brighten a girl's day," she paused, then pursed her lips. "I don't remember actually seeing this, though…and it's not that great of a picture. It looks like I snapped it from a long range…"

Barry shrugged. "That day didn't end well for you, remember? Maybe you just forgot about it. It's not like it's really important or anything, right?"

For some reason she couldn't place, she just couldn't shake the feeling that it _was. _

Something felt…off—about the house, the photographs, the painting, the whole situation in general.

"I gotta see this for myself."

Barry almost fell over. "W-what? Fionna, you almost _drowned _in that house! You can't be serious about going back there. Besides, you can't anyway, it was condemned after your accident."

Fionna let out a huff, pushing the rather terrifying memories into the back of her brain. "I almost drowned in the cistern. Which is _under _the house. And anyway, it's not like anybody'll see us. The Carters moved out last summer, and they were the only ones who lived close to that place. Besides, everybody's out for today—except for Simone, but that's because she almost never leaves her house. She lives a couple houses down the _other _direction, though."

"Wait, did you just say 'us'?"

The blonde grinned, some of her slightly crooked white teeth showing—she'd never gotten braces, but they weren't too noticeable—and held up her previously lost camera. "I promise I'll be extra careful this time. Besides, half of that painting is under a sheet or something, so we can't see the rest of it. You can't tell me you're not curious."

Her cerulean eyes sparkled. "Come on, I sense an adventure."

Barry sighed. "And I sense a serious headache and trouble," he paused. "No wait, that's just you."

Fionna laughed.

.

.

.

A half hour and several attempts to get Barry to go along with her, the two stood on the sidewalk outside the old house. It had stopped raining but the sky was still dark, and thunder could still be heard in the distance, signaling there was more rain to come.

Fionna rocked back and forth on her heels and grinned at the teen next to her. "You don't have to go in, okay. Just like…wait outside in case anything happens, or whatever. I'll be okay, promise."

He narrowed his eyes. "If I remember correctly, that's what you said last time. You know, before you fell seven feet through a floor and into a huge tank of old water."

The blonde did her best to hide her anxiety and punched him lightly in the arm. "Like I said, you're just a ray of sunshine."

Barry turned to her. "Cake will kill us both if she finds out."

"_If, if _she finds out," Fionna objected. "Which she isn't going to."

"We shouldn't be doing this. Something about that house…makes me feel uncomfortable in my own skin. There's something wrong with it, Fionna."

She rolled her eyes and cast a glance toward the old place, suppressing an unnatural shiver. "I never pegged you as the type of guy who believed in ghosts and goblins, Gumball."

He huffed and crossed his arms. "I don't, alright? I just…there's something _unnatural _about this place, Fionna. You can't be telling me that you don't feel it."

The blonde brushed her bangs out of her eyes and glanced up at him. "The weather is just a little chilly, and my hoodie is just a little too thin. That's all. It's just a creaky old house with rotting floorboards. There's nothing to be afraid of."

Though she was trying to convince him, her voice came off a little wavering, and it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself.

Barry sighed. "We can go back to your house, Fionna, and forget this ever happened. They're just photographs and it's just a painting. They don't hold any significance."

She grinned at him. "But we're already here, aren't we? I can't just turn back now," she patted his hand, and turned to head up the walk to the front porch.

Barry caught her wrist, and in response her breath caught in her throat. "Fionna," he called softly, and she glanced back at him, "just…don't do anything stupid, okay? Be careful."

She smiled, and he let go of her wrist. "I'm always careful, aren't I?"

Fionna resumed her short trek up the cracked walk and onto the porch. Cautiously avoiding any sagging floorboards, she picked her way over to a window. All the windows on the ground floor had been boarded up after the last time she'd been here, but there was one where the boards were hanging off the nails. Perhaps it'd been the last and whoever had done the job had just wanted to get it finished.

Whatever the case, she was grateful, and with a few quick tugs, the broken window was free of anything blocking her entrance. She turned back and waved at Barry, and then, she slipped inside, camera hanging from her neck.

Barry watched her disappear into the window and sighed. "Idiot," he mumbled under his breath. "It's not _just _an old house."

He gulped, rubbed his arms, and watched in worry as he waited for the blonde to come back out.

Because, there most definitely _was _something dangerous lurking around the house. And she should be very, _very _afraid of it.

Fionna smiled in triumph as she landed on the floor inside. Cautiously, she checked the surrounding floor, and upon deeming it safe, made her way through the front of the house.

There wasn't much to expect—though at one time, she was sure it was beautiful and lavishly decorated. That was, if the old furniture was any indication. None of it was really nice to look at now—the deep red velvet on the settees and chairs was torn and faded, the old paintings were ripped and faded, some of the old wooden pieces were broken and the finish was scratched, and a fine layer of dust covered everything.

There were cobwebs _everywhere_, and things were scattered all across the floor—broken pieces of once expensive china and vases, shredded books, and old trinkets. The whole place reeked of must and mold and rotting things, and there was something else, something more sinister underlying in the fumes.

It was kind of gross, yes, but haunted? No.

She wrinkled her nose in disgust, and carefully sidestepped some broken shards of glass.

There was an old grand piano off to the side of the parlor, and she pressed down on some of the ivory keys—which were yellowed from years upon years of sitting and being forgotten. The keys each made a sharp, out-of-tune sound that made her cringe, so she pulled her hand back and glanced at the fireplace instead.

There was a huge black stain stretching toward the center of the large room, and she suspected it was from the soot not being cleaned out and instead, it had all been pushed back into the house over the years.

She sighed and almost jumped out of her skin when there was a sudden gust of cold air, and some wrinkled pages that used to belong to a book flaw past her. The scream in the back of her throat died down and something fluttering in her peripheral vision caught her attention.

It was an old sheet, and she could see part of a canvas sticking out from underneath it.

Fionna felt the excitement bubble up in her chest as she rushed over—momentarily forgetting her promise to be careful. The old painting was leaned up against the wall, and she hesitantly reached a hand out toward it. Then, in one swift movement, she jerked the sheet off.

She didn't even notice when it dropped from her hand, as her attention was focused on the figure in the picture. A boy, yes, but the old photograph back in her living room didn't do him any justice. He was young—eight, maybe—and he was pale. Almost deathly so. He had dark, messy hair, and even darker eyes.

She was entranced.

The tips of his ears were a bit pointier than most, and his shirt looked old—like, hundreds of years old. It didn't really surprise her though. No one had lived in this house for over a hundred and fifty years. Since then it had laid to waste, and that was how it came to be in the state it was today.

Apparently, the children of Grassland Street weren't the only ones who thought the house had been haunted. People had been more superstitious, over a hundred years ago—back before Grassland Street was even there, and even stranger things had been happening around the old home. Because of those reasons—whatever they were, she'd never been able to find out—no one had wanted to live in it.

What she did know, though, was that something happened to whoever tried to live in it.

After a few of these occurrences, people stopped going near it.

Snapping out of her thoughts, Fionna lifted her camera and took a picture of the painting. She knew that back in those days, people didn't usually smile when they had their portraits painted, and she wondered what the boy would look like if he was smiling.

_Nice, _a little voice in her head told her, _I'm sure he would look nice. _

Fionna was about to head back outside to a surely impatient and worried Barry Gumball, when the floor creaked over her head. She froze, and waited as more sounds just like it followed. They quieted down though, but her heart was still beating a hundred miles a minute.

The blonde exhaled a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and cursed internally at her wobbling knees. She wasn't scared of an old house, after all.

(She was scared of whatever terrifying presence was lingering around it.)

Laughing quietly to herself, Fionna wrapped her trembling fingers around her camera and started for the window. She'd made it halfway when something sticking out from under an old sofa caught her eye. Letting her curiosity get the best of her, she wandered over and reached for whatever it was. All she could see was a glimpse of faded red fabric.

With a gentle tug, she pulled the object from out under the old piece of furniture and held it up. She puffed out her cheeks. It was an old stuffed animal—a bear, or something—with long, skinny arms and legs. It was missing one of its blue button eyes, and some of its old stuffing was coming out through a tear in its body.

Something about the old toy made her heart feel warm and ache at the same time. With a quick glance around the empty house, she tucked it under her arm and hurried over to the window. Her feet landed on the porch with a dull 'thud', but it thundered in her ears. She almost lost her balance for a moment, as the gray boards sagged under her newly-added weight, but then she swung herself over the railing and landed in the yard.

She grinned and got up off her scuffed knees, and rushed over to a relieved Barry.

"Look what I found!" she held up the dirty stuffed bear. "I'm gonna keep it."

Barry cast an anxious glance around the quiet street. "Yeah, that's nice Fionna. We'd better go back to your house now, okay? It's starting to rain again."

Fionna smiled, despite the chilling feeling that something was wrong with the place she'd just come from. The uneasiness went away when she hugged the stuffed animal to her chest, and when Barry grabbed her wrist again, though.

She let out a bubbling laugh as they ran back to her house, her sneaker-clad feet beating against the pavement, and the wind blowing her long hair out of her face and biting her cheeks. It was nice, she decided, as the sky opened up and unleashed hell in the form of raindrops down on them.

Her laughter and the thunder rang through the empty street.

.

.

.

**end notes: **guess who's going to debut next chapter? i was gonna write him in here, but it already felt complete, so. _yes_, the pairing for this story is fiolee, and yes it will happen. i just have to put in this thing with gumball, though okay. it adds context, and plus her crush on him is like canon, so. anyway, gumball seems to know something about the 'haunted' house on grassland street, hmm? and fionna found hambo. who i felt the need to add, okay.


	3. darling, darling, you better run

**notes: **this was not even what i'd planned on updating and yet here we are. _also i completely forgot about flame prince how could i. _he'll be in here as well, so no worries!

.

.

.

_i could kid myself, in thinking that i'm fine_

.

.

.

**iii.**

Sunday morning found Fionna tucked away in a corner of the treehouse in her backyard. It was rather impressive, perched up in a gigantic old oak tree, and had been there for a long, long time. Or at least that's what people said. There wasn't any solid information about whoever built it, but there _were_ initials carved into the wood. The treehouse looked weathered but it was kept up, especially when Fionna and her family moved in, and the blonde girl found her second home.

Her adoptive father had helped her fix it up, and over the years Fionna had added more creative touches to it. There was an old stained glass window Mr. Mertins had used to replace the previous broken one, which Fionna claimed 'gave it character.' She'd made chains of brightly-colored beads and baubles and stretched them from wall to wall. There were old Polaroid pictures stuck to one wall with thumbtacks, and colored rugs on the floor. Sleeping bags and blankets were shoved over into one corner, bean bag chairs placed about the open space, and throw pillows were strung here and there.

It was probably one of Fionna's most favorite places in the world, and if you were looking for her, it would be the first spot to check.

It was still raining outside, and the world looked very dull indeed, but not inside the treehouse. Candles that had been placed on shelves, the floor, and a chest in the corner had been lit, giving off a soft glow. An old radio on one of the shelves had been turned on and was playing some old rock song from the eighties, and a plate of cookies was sitting on the floor, waiting to be eaten.

Fionna had climbed up the ladder earlier that morning, sewing kit and the raggedy old stuffed bear under one arm, and had been in the treehouse ever since. Cake had brought her the cookies before she'd left for work, and only stayed long enough to ask about the thing losing its stuffing.

"Where did you get that thing, babycakes?"

"I um, found it. In the attic yesterday while Barry and I were cleaning."

Cake had raised a brow. "I don't ever remember seeing it before."

Fionna had panicked then, mainly because she never lied to her sister, and also because she hadn't thought up a believable excuse for how she came into possession of the stuffed toy.

"It was…it was in with some of mom's old stuff and I just thought…"

Cake nodded, seeming to understand, and left shortly after, promising to be home by seven and if Fionna needed anything, just to call or stop by the diner. Her younger sister had been relieved beyond belief, and silently swore that she'd never do it again.

Then, she set to work. She pulled out her needle and thread, some old stuffing she'd pulled from an old pillow in the attic, and began to sew. Mrs. Mertins had taught her how when she was younger, and though it had been a challenge, Fionna loved to learn new things.

She stitched up the tears and patched up the holes, painstakingly drawing the needle through the fabric time after time after time. It was slow work at first, but soon she got the hang of it and the task began to go faster. Or maybe she was just having fun, they did say that time went by faster if you were.

The radio switched songs to a happier tune, and she quietly sang along as she sewed and the rain pattered against the window outside. Fionna smiled to herself and reached over to pick up a cookie before leaning back and admiring her handiwork. The stuffed bear looked much better than it had before, though the material was still faded and it was still missing an eye. She'd washed it the night before, so the stains were gone and it smelled like lilac laundry detergent instead of moldy old house.

She stuck the cookie in her mouth and pulled out a blue button from the tin she'd brought along. Grandmothers always seemed to have old cookie tins filled to the brim with different kinds of buttons, and she had been lucky enough to come across Grandma Mertins' up in the attic the day before. She could remember sitting on the older woman's floor when they would visit her and sorting through the tin, not even a bit disappointed that there weren't any cookies in it at all.

Fionna positioned the button in the spot where it was to go, and picked up her needle again. She slipped it through one of the small holes with ease and down into the fabric before pulling it back up again. This was done several more times before she stopped, and with a final snip of the scissors, she was finished.

It wasn't the prettiest stuffed animal ever, or even the cutest, what with its gangly limbs and mismatched button eyes and faded red body, but she felt a strange attachment to it. Which was stupid, because she'd only just found it yesterday.

She picked up another cookie and traced the stitched smile on its face. There was a faded inscription on the left leg that said the bear's name was Hambo, and she laughed. What a name for a toy. Maybe it'd belonged to the mysterious boy in the painting, and had been lost. But obviously it'd been well loved, and so she couldn't imagine it just being left behind.

She pulled Hambo close to her chest and glanced at the initials scratched into the wood boards next to her. The crudely carved _M.L. _was still there, as if to mock her. If letters could laugh, she liked to think that they would.

The blonde stared at the markings for a long time, willingly them to tell her what they knew about the house and the bear in her arms and the dead boy in the painting. They stared back, and didn't say a word.

.

.

.

Barry discovered Fionna nose-deep in a book on the history of their town Monday afternoon. He'd been searching for her for over an hour, and it wasn't until he looked in the library—which she hardly ever went to—that he found her.

He stared at her, as she had yet to notice his presence, mouth agape. "What on earth are you doing?"

Fionna's head shot up, eyes wide, but she settled down when she noticed her best friend standing in front of her. She lifted the book a little higher and gave him her patented What Do You Think look. "I'm reading."

Barry huffed and pulled out a chair before taking a seat across from her. "I mean what are you doing in the library—_besides reading, don't even start_—buried in city records?"

He paused, and strange look flitted across his face. "Wait. Do they even have those in the library? Is that a usual thing?"

"They keep them in City Hall, actually—in the records department. Which is kind of a no-brainer honestly, but whatever floats their boat," she shrugged, "not my job. I stopped by and somehow managed to convince cranky old Lemongrab to let me read them."

Barry wasn't fazed. "You snatched them when she wasn't looking, didn't you?"

She shrugged again, smile playing at the corners of her lips. "Whatever, I got ahold of them, anyway. That's the main point."

"Okay, so _why _did you technically steal these records from City Hall?"

Fionna waved a hand at him. "_Shh. _Glob Barry, don't say it like _that. _Especially not so loud, we're in a public place y'know. But okay, I'll bite. I needed to take a look at them. And," she rolled her eyes in an exaggerated manner, "I didn't _steal _them—they're public records and therefore open to the public. But Lemongrab doesn't like me very much—"

"That's an understatement if I've ever heard one."

"—_and so _the deranged woman probably wouldn't even give them to me if I offered her a sacrifice of the finest lemon tarts and lemonade I have to offer. She'd have me booted from the building—probably even do it herself—and then she'd put whatever I asked for on lockdown and summon demon guard dogs from the depths of hell to watch over it and then I'd _never _get my hands on them. Public records or no public records."

Barry stared at her. "Alright, overactive imagination aside, you never really answered my question. I mean, kind of, but in an extremely vague way."

Fionna grinned. "Oh yeah, that. I need them to figure out who used to own that old house at the end of Grassland street."

"Not _this _again," he groaned, dropping his chin into his hand. "Fionna, I thought you said you'd leave it alone after you were inside it _the second time_."

She laid the book on the table, and for the first time he noticed several open files strewn about the smooth surface, and huffed. "But _Barry, _can't you see? It's a _mystery, _and mysteries need to be solved. Come on, where is your sense of adventure? Nobody really knows anything about that house or the people who lived in it, don't you think that's weird?"

"What people?" Nobody's lived in that house for a long time, Fionna," he sighed.

She shook a finger at him. "Yeah but, someone did at _one point in time. _They didn't just build it and then leave it there for like, two hundred years or however long it's been standing. Besides, I just get the feeling that it's important. Like, super important. Spectacularly important. On an astronomical scale of extremely gigantic proportions."

Barry shook his head but smiled wanly. "Now you're just exaggerating. But if you really want to do this…just promise me you'll be careful."

Fionna beamed at him. "Cross my heart."

He glanced down at the information scattered across the tabletop. "So…where do we start?"

.

.

.

She didn't notice the changes at first, they were either too subtle or she just wasn't paying enough attention. She did have a bad habit of not focusing on things as well as she should, after all. Sometimes things just flew right over her head. Things around her had been changing since the day she first set foot in that house at the end of the street. Or perhaps they'd always been there, and she was just too blind to notice.

A shiver here, a sudden and unexplainable chill there, the weirdly large amount of bats that hung around the woods near her house, or the breathy laugh she swore she heard in the wind every once in a while.

But it wasn't until something literally flew right over her head that she suddenly noticed.

It was a Wednesday, a week after she had managed to convince Barry to go with her to the end of the street, and it was chilly. Cake had made sure she was bundled up before she'd even left the house that morning, and she hadn't regretted any of the layers at all.

Fionna was walking back from school by herself, and had just turned onto her street when something swooped low and almost tangled in her hair. She let out a shriek when something sharp caught her cheek, and tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, falling into a heap on the cold concrete. She glanced around wildly, hair flying in the wind, looking for the offending…whatever it was.

She heard it before she saw it.

The crow had landed in a dead tree in the lawn of the home across from Simone Petrikov's. It let out a long mournful call, and seemed to stare directly at Fionna, who had pulled herself up to her knees. It screeched at her and she flinched. She felt a little dumb, because it was just a bird and sometimes birds got temperamental and maybe it'd just been an accident. But there was something about the way it was looking at her, the way it tilted its head and in that moment she could have sworn she saw its eyes flash red.

It called out again, trying to tell her, somebody, or whatever else something she couldn't understand before spreading its sooty wings and flying off. Fionna felt something wet and warm on her cheek and pressed her fingers to it. When she pulled away, her eyes widened at the blood staining her fingertips. Something shifted out of her peripheral vision, and she looked across the street.

The dead grass was littered with various plastic and cement penguins, and the whole house gave off an unfriendly air. The curtains hanging in the window fluttered from where Simone was peeking out of the glass panes. Their eyes met, and the older woman quickly pulled the curtains closed, leaving Fionna completely alone.

She glanced back down at the blood staining her skin and swallowed. The air suddenly felt colder, and the wind bit into her exposed skin and snapped its jaws around the cut on her cheek, making it sting more than it already did. Something welled up in her chest, and she scraped the palms of her hands against the rough sidewalk in an attempt to scramble to her feet. The whole neighborhood seemed less friendly and more sinister, the trees dark and twisted, bare of leaves and reaching for the sky but never to make it.

She couldn't shake the sudden feeling that she was being watched, not by Simone, but by someone—some_thing _else. It made all the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end and cold shiver ran all the way down her spine. Her body convulsed on instinct, but without her permission.

Fionna cast one last glance at the tree where the crow had been, and then she ran the rest of the way home and didn't stop until she'd locked the front door and slammed her own shut. She took deep breaths as she fell back against the door, sinking to the floor.

Her gaze landed on the stuffed bear smiling at her from its perch on her bed, and she closed her eyes.

.

.

.

Later that night, after she was safely tucked into bed, cuddled up under piles of blankets and clutching Hambo close to her chest, she stared up at the ceiling. She'd managed to get Cake off her case about the cut on her cheek—"I tripped and fell, you know how clumsy I can be sometimes"—but her sister had given her weird looks all throughout the evening until she'd headed up the stairs to bed.

Fionna couldn't blame her, honestly, because she was pretty sure she'd been acting strange herself. She'd hardly said a word during dinner, and hadn't even asked for a second serving of spaghetti afterward. Of course, it was probably because her mind was preoccupied with other things that didn't involve school and the diner and almost blowing up the chemistry lab on accident while Barry stood beside her in a scorched lab coat while she tried to explain to the principal that _no, those were not the_ chemicals_ I was trying to use someone must have switched them out I swear. _

She turned over onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut. Paranoid, paranoid, paranoid. She was just being paranoid and nothing was really wrong. She repeated it like a mantra over and over in her head until her expression relaxed and her breathing slowed. She drifted off into a dreamless sleep, completely unaware when her window opened and something slipped through it and into her room.

It drifted over to her bed and stayed there for a few minutes before reaching out and brushing her fringe to the side. The angry cut on her cheek was a stark contrast to how pale her skin looked in the moonlight, and a long, slender finger traced the rough edges of the wound.

"You," he murmured. "It's _you_."

Flickering crimson eyes spotted the head of a stuffed animal peeking out from the mass of covers on the bed, and they softened. He brushed his thumb over her cheek one last time before slipping out the way he came.

Fionna slept on.

.

.

.

**end notes: **it's so cheesy i know. i forgot how much fun this was to write. everyone actually plays a super important role in this story and i _am already including foreshadowing what is this. _


End file.
